Whether the Weather
by Tairako
Summary: A collection of short stories, featuring Squall, Yuffie, and how various forms of weather seem to always interrupt plans in ways that vary from funny to cute to annoying. Now: snow.
1. Gusts

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, nuh-uh, no way.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Amazing what some window-rattling can do, huh? Yeah, this was inspired by the weather where I am; for some reason it's been awfully windy this year. And when I say windy I mean trees thrashing against my window and me honestly wondering if the glass was going to break. It's happened several times in the past month, so I decided to do a little fic about it. And since I'm me, it had to be a Squffie.

Funny thing is I was playing FFVIII right before I wrote this. Tonberries suck so much. I originally had a slightly different ending in mind where Cid got pegged with a flashlight, but I decided to leave it out. Maybe some other time... Ahh Cid, what would we do without you?

(Soundtrack: "Passion" by Utada Hikaru)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Can we leave _yet_, Squall?" Yuffie pleaded, trying to keep the whining tone out of her voice but not really succeeding.

"It's Leon, and no we can't. We'd get smashed to bits out there." Shaking the match out, Squall sat back on his heels, watching the lantern carefully to make sure it didn't blow out yet again. This time their luck seemed to hold, at last, and he carefully put the matches back in his pocket, not wanting to lose them. The kerosene lantern wouldn't last for very long, but it gave more light – and more comforting light – than their small flashlights.

Yuffie, bundled in her collapsed tent like a blanket, made a pitiful sound in her throat and tried to huddle deeper in the nylon to conserve what little body heat she could still feel. "Camping. In the _winter_. Why in the hell did we let Cid talk us into this?"

Pulling his own jacket tighter around himself, Squall shook his head. "I have no idea."

It had started out simple enough, of course. When the question of getting away for awhile had come up, all five of them had welcomed the idea with enthusiasm. There was just way too much to get done sometimes… And for some reason the idea of three days without any company but each other sounded fantastic, even at the beginning of winter, once Cid had assured them that there would be no rain or snow to make them freeze to death.

Of course, he'd forgotten about the wind.

More like hurricanes really, shaking the trees and bringing down limbs and chilling them all to the bone. And of course it hadn't started until after dark, just when Yuffie had been setting up her tent to go to sleep. And of course it had to grab the tent and send it flying away from her, and of course she had to go chasing after it, and Squall couldn't just let her run off on her own, though he'd had the presence of mind to grab a lantern before he left. Cid, Cloud, and Aerith had been off somewhere else at that point – well, more likely Cloud and Aerith were not with Cid, but none of them were at the camp, which meant that none of them knew what had happened to their companions.

And of course by the time they'd caught up to the tent, which had been dragged in every possible direction by the wind that seemed to change direction every second, they had completely lost sight of the camp, the truck, and anything even remotely manmade.

Between them, they had two packs of matches, the lantern, two flashlights and some spare batteries, five granola bars, two chocolate bars, and a pack of gum, plus the clothes on their backs, which were fortunately warm. But their situation was still dismal, and the wind didn't stop. It completely messed with even their excellent senses of direction, and in the end they'd simply run, tent and all, the way it seemed to be pushing them.

The cabin they'd found who knew how much later seemed like a haven at first, and they gratefully ducked inside. But they'd quickly discovered that the previous occupants had stripped it bare down to the floor and the walls and ceiling had a disturbing habit of rattling loudly in the gusts.

That rattling was why Yuffie did _not_ want to be there.

"What if the place _collapses_ on us?"

"It won't," Squall said for what seemed to be the tenth time. "It sounds bad, but it's only sound. This thing's probably stood through several of these windstorms."

"All the more reason for it to fall!"

"Yuffie," he said with a little exasperation. "Would you rather be in here, where that _might_ happen, or out there with a guarantee of freezing?"

She groaned, pulling the makeshift blanket tighter around her shoulders. "I'd rather not be out here at all."

"Me neither, Yuf, but we're here. It'll probably die down by morning, though, and then we can find the others." He stood, pulling out his flashlight and clicking it on.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to go see if I can find something to make a fire with."

She shook her head. "Don't bother, this place is so old the chimney's gotta be blocked."

He paused. "Damn." Turning off the flashlight, he sat down again against the wall, watching the lantern in front of them and wondering how long the kerosene in there would last.

Yuffie flinched as another gust rattled the rafters. "I'd just like to say again that I do _not_ like that noise."

"Duly noted." Squall wasn't too big a fan of it either, but right now it was vastly preferable to having to fight against that pseudo-hurricane out there, not finding their camp or their friends, who by now had to be huddled in the truck.

If they'd gotten back. Maybe all of them were lost somewhere. _That_ was a depressing thought, one he certainly wasn't sharing with Yuffie-

"Squall, what if the others are lost, too?"

Too late. He could do nothing but shake his head, admitting he didn't know. "They had a compass, at least… As long as one of them was keeping track of direction there's a good chance they're back."

"Damn Cid and his stupid ideas…" she grumbled, pulling the tent up over her head like a hood. He shook his head once more, hiding a small smile; she looked like some doll a little girl had tried to make a dress for and had failed badly – but still went ahead and put the dress on the doll anyway.

"Don't laugh, it conserves body heat." She knew him too well.

"I wasn't laughing." Which was true. Yet another gust shook the walls and Yuffie flinched again, looking up at the roof as if she expected it to collapse on top of them any second. Which she probably did. 

Neither of them were getting any sleep like that. "Come here."

"_What?_"

"Come here or let me in there." She continued to watch him as if he'd grown a second head, and admittedly he couldn't really blame her. "Two is better than one, right? If we can't start a fire, that's the best way to save heat."

For one long, wind-rattling moment, he was sure she was going to refuse, but then she finally flipped out one side of the tent, shifting so she was no longer sitting on it and they could use it as a blanket. "One hand in the wrong place and you lose it, got that?"

"Perfectly."

They made themselves as comfortable as they could on the dusty floor, still huddled in their sweaters, jeans, jackets, and boots as they pulled the waterproof nylon around them; a feeble blanket, but the best they could do. Squall settled down with his head resting on his arm, only briefly debating sacrificing his sweater for a pillow, but gave up the idea as Yuffie lay down as well with her back to him, copying his actions by using her arm to support her head as well. Neither of them would sleep if they had to lean against those rattling walls, so this was the best they could do.

A loud _CRASH_ from very nearby made Yuffie shriek and somehow jump back into him, nearly cracking him in the nose with the back of her head. Squall had no time to pay attention to the near-injury though as he tried to calm Yuffie's shakes. "It's all right, it was probably just a branch."

"That's a pretty damn big branch then!" she half-yelled, still shaking. "Squall, are you _sure_ we can't go back to camp and-"

He cut her off by putting one arm around her waist and pulling her into him, giving her a steadying support, and she was stunned enough by the move to stop both talking and shaking. "It'll be okay, Yuf. You'll see; it'll be calm in the morning."

A non-articulate grumble was his only answer, but the girl had stopped shaking at last – and when she settled down again, it was with her head on his chest. And apparently his arm around her waist wasn't in the wrong place.

It took a long time for them to finally fall asleep – and not too long after they had, the perversity of the weather was once again confirmed as the wind began to die, fading out entirely within a few minutes. So when they woke in the morning, a little cold and a little stiff but otherwise all right, it was to the blue skies of an early winter early morning, a sight they'd seen many, many times before.

But this one… something made this one just subtly different.


	2. Rainfall

DISCLAIMER: Still not mine, never will be. Damn.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, obviously I decided to continue this "weather" type collection of short stories. This particular one was inspired by the rain. We've had rain. A lot of rain. For the past five days. I swear, if we weren't in the foothills we'd be flooded. And no thunder or lightening either, at least not that I've heard or seen. Soooooo, considering I'd had an image in my mind anyway - and _Taming_ isn't up to actual Squffieness yet - I decided to do another one of these, and I'll do more in the future. If you have any weather types you'd like to see me use, go ahead and suggest 'em, otherwise I'll probably still be trying to decided until I get fed up with the weather here again.

I do like this type of rain - it's awfully soothing to fall asleep to the sound of a shower when you're nice and warm. Being out in it, however, is a different story, so I took that idea and ran with it. An alternate ending to "Gusts," the one I talked about with Cid getting hit in the head with a flashlight, is up on my livejournal as well: www . livejournal . com / users / tairako (copy, paste, delete spaces). Hope you enjoy.

(Soundtrack: "Geek in the Pink," by Jason Mraz, from the CD _Mr. A-Z_.)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Well… this sucks."

The statement summed up the situation nicely. All they'd wanted was some time to themselves, something that was in very short supply when surround by others as constantly as they were. So it made a lot of sense to steal off before the others were awake for a drive up into the mountains, a place where people hardly ever went at any time, much less in early spring. But March was living up to its reputation: no sooner had they set foot outside the truck then the downpour began, sending them scrambling for cover once more and ruining all plans of enjoyment.

"It's the forests. It's gotta be the forests. They bring us bad luck and we should just avoid 'em from now on," Yuffie said, leaning her forehead against the chill window and peering up, trying to see if there was _any_ relief coming.

"There's not many other places to go, Yuf," Squall replied, arms draped over the steering wheel and watching out the driver's side window. "Except the shopping centers."

Yuffie shivered violently at that, clearly expressing her opinion on _that_ idea. "No thank _you_." And she knew he liked those places even less than she did. "Maybe when it gets warm enough we can go to the lake."

"Maybe." Noncommittal at best, but there were so many people there… "Should we just head back, do you think?"

"_Hell_ no." She shifted, pulling back from the window and wrapping her arms around herself, wishing she'd worn more than her windbreaker. "I'd rather sit this out and have at least _some_ private time than go back where we'll be swamped, and you know we will be."

Squall turned a doubtful eye upwards once more. There was no thunder, no lightening, and the sky was that uniform, dull, leaden gray that promised long showers, not brief storms. This wasn't the type of rain to be "sat out;" this was the type to be enjoyed inside, perhaps with a fire and a book and a hot drink if you were a romantic. Which he was not. But she was right; the moment they returned, they were guaranteed to be drafted into doing whatever project Cid and Aerith had planned for the day, and they both just needed a break.

And it wasn't like the were in the same position as last time, being lost and nearly getting hypothermia with no way to find help…

He yanked the keys out of the ignition and stowed them in his coat pocket, settling back against his seat as Yuffie looked at him quizzically. "Let's see how long it takes this to die out, then."

She nodded with a smirk, knowing exactly what he'd been thinking, and then turned around to grab something from the backseat. The truck was a few years old, but large and spacious, big enough to fit all five of them if Yuffie was one of the ones that sat in the second row. The cover was over the truck bed, so it wasn't filling with water from the steady rain. Yuffie straightened up again, holding a thermos she had pulled out of the bag they had brought, that held food they had _planned_ to cook for their lunch, and two plastic cups. "Want some tea?" she asked as she unscrewed the lid.

"Please."

She quickly poured the tea, handing him one of the cups and sealing up the thermos again to keep the warmth in, setting it on the floor next to her feet. It was nice, she decided, to just sit there in the truck with him, nothing electronic screaming at them for attention, no phones, no housemates yelling for help with something or other, the rain beating a soothing staccato on the roof only inches above their heads. It was relaxing. She felt like she could just go to sleep like this and sleep for a week with him next to her and the rain around them.

Well, almost like this. Yuffie moved the thermos so it wouldn't get kicked, and then inched down the truck's seat, glad it didn't have a divider, to Squall. As usual he could tell what she was thinking without her having to say it, and he turned sideways to lean against the door, while she crawled up to lean with her back against his chest. The arm not holding his tea came around her waist in what had become her favorite position, and she nodded slightly as she got comfortable. "This is nice."

"Yeah." He wasn't one to say much, but with her he didn't have to. Yuffie took another drink of her tea, watching the water roll down the windshield with her head on his shoulder, then set her cup down next to the pedals and snuggled into him, stealing his warmth for herself, which he didn't mind.

It was peaceful, and she could have dropped off into sleep right then and there – if Squall's jacket hadn't suddenly erupted with a horribly distorted version of some classic guitar riff, making them both groan. Yuffie quickly reached in the pocket and pulled out the shrieking cell phone, glaring at it as if her gaze alone could set it on fire, then handed it to him with a grumble. "Aerith."

He sighed, glancing at the number himself. "It would be." They had nothing against the flower girl, but she was certainly the one most likely to worry if she woke and found them missing – as she apparently had. Squall hit the talk button and brought the phone to his ear as Yuffie nestled in once again, moving his own cup of tea down to join hers on the floor. "Hello?"

"Leon!" Yuffie could hear their friend clearly over the phone's speaker, and grumbled a little more. "Where on earth are you!"

"Not there, Aerith, and unless there's an emergency we won't be until tonight."

"You two need to come back, we need your help getting furniture up the stairs-"

"Aerith," Yuffie said, tilting her head up to be closer to the microphone, "the world ain't gonna end because we don't haul stuff around for a day or two. Give it a rest, we're taking a break – grab Cloud and take one yourself."

"And please don't call us again," Squall added before Aerith could say anything. "We won't pick up." Without any more preamble, Squall ended the call – and waited, not putting the phone away. Within three seconds, it began to ring again.

Yuffie glanced up at him. "Door?"

He nodded. "Door."

As Squall hit the talk button one more time, Yuffie twisted and reached around him for the handle of the driver's side door. Finding and undoing the latch took only a moment, and it was easy for Squall to toss the phone over his shoulder and out of the truck, Aerith's voice calling their names cut off as Yuffie pulled the door shut once again.

"_Much_ better," she said, with a smirk very like a satisfied cat, as she resettled herself in her position against him.

"Much," he agreed, wrapping both arms around her waist again and resting his head on hers.

The rain continued to stream down as the voice over the cell phone, now lying in a patch of mud, continued to call their names. And they simply continued to ignore it all, stealing a few hours for themselves before going back to the chaos of life.


	3. Blizzard

DISCLAIMER: It still ain't mine. Can't blame me for wishing, though.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Technically I should be studying for my Hinduism final tomorrow, but I feel pretty confident about it (it's essays, I've had a long history of BSing and I've actually done the reading for the class unlike most of my fellow students) and this was just begging to be written because Murphy's Law is love.

For Gin, for suggesting snow - twice, which ended up being the motivator for finding a plot for this since I've seen a fairly good number of "Squffies in snow" and I didn't wanna repeat any of 'em. It's more humorous than the previous two - and yes, I just had to make Squall bad at poker, and you'll see why in the storylet. Let's just say I don't think anyone who likes Squffies would've been disappointed if he'd said yes to playing it. This is also semi-based on a real life experience me and my friends had a couple years ago, when we went to the store in a big group to buy food for a cookout, though that was in August and dealt with a violent rainstorm and not snow. Especially the "bzzrt." You'll see. What're you still here for, read, read!

By sheer technicality this one takes place before the rain one, but I don't really care about timeline with this collection. Make sure to keep suggesting weather, because I'm still looking for more! (heartsoblivion, I'll do sleet as soon as I can think of a mini-plot for it!)

(Soundtrack: "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by Santa Esmerelda, from the soundtrack to _Kill Bill Vol. I_)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It wasn't like it was July. It wasn't like it was even April, or March, or November. It was January. It was cold in January. Snow was to be expected.

But not this much snow.

Yuffie whistled very quietly as she stared through the glass, plastered to the big grocery store windows and unable to see even five feet in front of her. It had been snowing when she and Squall walked in, but that snow was the fat, fluffy flakes of the kind that made excellent snowballs and gave just enough work for the snowplows to be pulled out and put back again within an hour. Not even enough to have the local schools closing.

This, however, was a blizzard, and there was no getting around it.

"Uh, Squall…" she called to the young man behind her currently paying for the groceries. "I don't think we can leave."

They had done their shopping as fast as they could, but shopping for five people for a week in an unfamiliar store took a lot longer than they had anticipated. Apparently in the hour and a half they had trolled the aisles, the gentle snowfall had grown into a silent monster that blanketed everything and almost seemed to be pressing the life out of the world.

Squall came up beside her as soon as he received his bank card back, and she heard him curse quietly under his breath. He knew more about snow than she did, but that not-quite heard curse assured her that her assumption had indeed been correct, and when he pulled out his cell phone it was only confirmed. Quickly dialing the number and leaning a little more towards the glass for a better signal, it was only a few moments before someone answered. "Cloud, yeah, it's me… Yeah… Yeah, we can't leave yet. It's like a blanket out there and I probably couldn't see my hand in front of my face… We'll be fine, we'll just come back once it's over. What about you?... I don't have a teleporter, Strife, otherwise you would be in space right now." Yuffie bit her tongue so she wouldn't ask about that one. "Yeah… Break up those old bookshelves and start a fire, we needed to get rid of them anyway. Just- Cloud? Cloud?" Lowering the phone from his ear, Squall shook his head and turned it off. "We got cut off, but I don't know whether it was the signal or the ground line that went."

"With how much Murphy's Law loves us, I'd bet both. What's the teleporter for?"

"He wanted us to send the food back to them but keep ourselves here."

Yuffie snickered, finally peeling herself away from the window and heading over to the cart. Her parka was buried there, and she dug under the plastic bags for the bulky bundle. "Hey, if we're making him sick it's only payback for what he and Aerith did to us."

"I'm sure he doesn't see it the same way."

"Least we don't randomly grab each other in public." Yuffie pulled a waded bundle from one of the parka's pockets and untangled it, pulling on the two separate gloves it made once she was done. Suddenly she spun on her heels and fell towards him, grabbing his sleeves just as he caught her by her elbows. "Kiss me, Cloud! Kiss me, you tall blond stud!" she cried in a high falsetto, somehow managing to _not_ dissolve into laughter despite the fact that she was attracting the attention of the clerks and the other shoppers.

Normally Leon wouldn't like all those eyes on them, but at the moment he was trying too hard to not break out into laughter. "Yuffie…"

"Yuffie? But I'm Aerith!" she continued in the fake voice, widening her eyes at him dramatically. "Why do you say Yuffie's name? You love her, don't you Cloud! Not me! Oh woe!" And she spun away from him, throwing one hand to her forehead, and plainly would have continued if Squall hadn't quickly grabbed her around the waist, pulled her back into him (making her squeak), and clapped a hand over her mouth.

He could feel her trying to bite him through the leather on his hands. "That typically works better when I'm not wearing gloves," he said into her ear.

"Damn you, Leonheart," she replied, muffled, but in her own voice.

He chuckled quietly as he took his hand away from her mouth. "You're scaring the nice spectators, Yuf."

Her only response for that was to throw them a cheesy grin and a wave before finally breaking free of his restraint and going back to look out the window. There hadn't been many people in the store, most people having been smart and not nearly running out of food while the snow went on, but there were still five cashiers and a handful of shoppers with them, and they were slowly coalescing behind them to watch the blizzard as well. The large windows provided an all too clear view of the snow coming down, which was slightly creepy in its silence.

"I'm gonna go crazy if I just stand here and watch this," Yuffie said suddenly. Grabbing her parka from the cart and pulling it on as she walked, she turned and started heading towards the produce section on the right, clearly doing it just to have something to do. Glancing at the other few people trapped there with them, Squall decided the cart (and their purchases) were safe enough, and followed her. With his luck, she'd find something for them to do to pass the time until they could get out. Of course, if his luck was bad, that something would involve stuff being destroyed.

By the time he reached the vegetables, she was gone, having disappeared down one of the aisles when he hadn't seen her. A couple of minutes later, he finally located her in the cereal aisle, at the small display of incredibly cheap toys the store sold, ripping open a pack of normal playing cards. "Yuf, we haven't paid for that," he reminded her as he came up next to her.

She just shrugged. "I'll pay when we head out. No big deal. Come on, play something with me."

"What were you thinking of?"

And a grin. "Strip poker."

"No."

"Aww, come on."

"It's too cold." _And Cid and Cloud would kill me. Or worse._

"You just hate that you always lose. Blackjack then."

But after four rounds of Blackjack, one of War that they actually finished, a round of poker that did _not_ involve stripping (and he did indeed lose), two rounds of Hearts and a round of Fifty-Two pickup that they both refused to participate in, there was still no getting out. The management had come blaring over the intercom at some point during their game of War, and again during the second time through Hearts, saying that the snow had not stopped, nor had the plows come by. Playing cards scattered around them as they sat on the linoleum, Yuffie buried her face in the shoulder of his overcoat and groaned. "I'm going to go crazy."

"Please don't, I don't like having to talk you out of insanity."

"You haven't had to yet. How long do you think this is going to take?"

"I don't know." The air was gradually chilling, and he put an arm around her shoulders as she started to shiver a little even with her parka. "But this place still has its electricity, so we'll be all right."

_BZZZRT._

Damn.

"Squall," Yuffie said casually into the sudden darkness, "if you say one more thing, I'm going to kill you."

He nodded silently. Murphy's Law did indeed love them.


End file.
